Meera Group’s construction site at Kabira Country Club has reportedly collapsed.
The retention-wall of the multi-billion construction site caved in during the heavy Friday downpour that rocked Kampala.
Sources shared a photo with us about the collapsed site that is being undertaken by the tycoon’s controversial company V-Con Construction Ltd. The photos show concrete debris with failed steel scattered all over the site, opposite former Cayenne Restaurant.
By afternoon Friday, the workers were struggling to remove the debris that nearly blocked the road linking to Oryx Oil. Under Meera Investments Ltd, Sudhir is undertaking construction of an extension at Kabira Country Club in Bukoto, a city suburb.
This website contacted Meera Investments Ltd for a comment, but there was no response by time we uploaded this article. The expansion construction has not been short of controversies since it took off. In 2020, Meera Investments sued UK based architectural firm FBW Group and its directors Nigel J. Tilling and Paul Moores for breach of contract, seeking to recover $3m.
FBW was contracted by Meera Investments, a property development company to provide consultancy services for the construction of Speke Apartments and the expansion of Kabira Country Club in 2012. FBW and the two individuals Tiling and Moores had previously provided services for Meera Investments and it was on that premise that they were entrusted with the botched job.
They had previously worked on Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort, Kampala International School, Delhi Public School, Kampala Boulevard Shopping Centre, Kingdom Kampala, Downtown Project in Rwanda and Phase 1 of Kabira Country Club. However, in contravention of the contract, FBW demanded more money totaling to $75,000 (20%) which they were supposed to receive when construction had commenced.
This prompted Sudhir to seek legal redress. The construction is being undertaken by Sudhir’s own construction company Vcon Construction Ltd that has been mired in controversies. Vcon was recently cited in the controversy related to the construction of Makerere University Main building (Ivory Tower)
The company petitioned the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) to halt the procurement process. This website has established that M/S VCON Construction (U) Ltd, one of the bidders who were disqualified, had in December applied to PPDA for administrative review, after a special committee formed by the university secretary found out that they were rightly disqualified by the contracts committee.
INVITATION BID
On September 17, 2021, Makerere University published an invitation to bid notice in the newspapers for the restoration and construction of the main building. A pre-bid meeting was held at the main building parking area. Sources noted that during the pre-bid meeting, bidders raised a number of technical issues in the bidding document and responses were given and agreed upon. “Because of the changes in the bidding document, it was agreed that the deadline for submission be extended from September 20, 2021 to Friday October 29, 2021. All bidders were issued with the signed copy of the minutes,” a source noted.
“The company did not provide the requisite five signed agreements/ contracts executed in Uganda for buildings, did not provide contracts equivalent or sh20b each in the last three years,” says the report, dated December 30, 2021.
It is also alleged that the company did not provide evidence of ownership or lease agreement of a wheel loader, among others. Four firms reached financial evaluation/ comparison, including Seyani Brothers & Amp. Co Ltd, Excel Construction Ltd and the Arab Contractors Ltd.
The evaluation team recommended M/s. Excel Construction Ltd for the award of the contract for the said works at sh20,053,627,463 and on December 8, 2021, the contracts committee approved the recommendation. On December 9, 2021 the best evaluated bidder notice was displayed with the removal date of December 22, 2021. On December 23, 2021,
M/s VCON Construction Ltd, through their lawyers, Walusimbi and Company Advocates, wrote to the university secretary vide their letter Ref. No. NK/LI/ VCON/12/2021, requesting for administrative review, pursuant to Sections 89 and 90 of the PPDA Act, 2003. The application for administrative review was accompanied by a receipt as proof of payment of administrative review fees of sh5m, in compliance with Reg. 11 (1) of the PPDA (Administrative Review) Regulations 2014, SI No.16/2014. On December 28, 2021, Makerere University accounting officer Yusuf Kiranda appointed a committee to review the application and report back to him within seven days.
VCON A CON?
The committee found that the M/S VCON Construction Ltd failed to fulfill almost all requirements as indicated in the solicitation document. The committee noted that M/S VCON Construction Ltd produced valid practicing certificates for Ivan Kutosi, who was the construction manager, but did not present a valid practicing certificate for Eng. Denis Adrole, the site engineer.
The committee also reportedly found no proof of relevant academic qualification for Yasin Mubiru, the foreman, nor proof of relevant academic qualification for Philly Mpaata, who was the quantity surveyor. On previous and current works of equivalent nature, Pearl Business Park, the committee found out that even though M/S VCON Construction Ltd produced a running contract of $10m VAT inclusive, no certified copies of interim payment certificates were submitted.
“The evaluation committee properly found that the applicant’s bid was not substantially responsive to the minimum requirements of the detailed evaluation and, accordingly, was right to reject it at the detailed evaluation stage, in compliance with regulation 19(4) of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (Evaluation) Regulations, 2014.
“The committee, therefore, finds no merit in all the grounds raised by the applicant and recommends that the application for administrative review is rejected,” the report reads.
